


The Key to Your Hart

by forpuckssake



Series: Heart to Hart [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Gen, Minor Violence, TK and Nolan are their own warning, baby goalie feels, brief appearance of firearm, oh yeah some penguins appear very briefly, spy AU, they're not bad they're just enemies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 04:13:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17891291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forpuckssake/pseuds/forpuckssake
Summary: Home was living with his disaster of a Captain who made him grilled cheese at 2AM, and waking up in the morning to his groupchat with Nolan and Travis full of their married bickering, and Danny’s calm reassurances.Carter decided that there was nowhere he’d rather be.





	The Key to Your Hart

**Author's Note:**

> no one would write this so i had to
> 
> see notes at the end for warnings! i'm pretty sure i tagged everything accurately, but if there's anything you think i should add please let me know and i will do so
> 
> also i'm thinking of making this a series?? i have all the ideas, plus a couple of things already written up. this one is a mix between silly and serious, though i have ideas for one extreme or the other.
> 
> regardless of severity, i've also decided to attempt to make every title a pun so buckle up
> 
> this one is gen but tbh i'm a slut for Danny B and G-Baby and also TK and Nolan so that's also almost definitely going to happen in future works

“Stop scowling like that, 019,” Carter murmured, frowning. “You look like you want to kill someone.”

“He can’t help it,” Travis cackled. “He always looks a little like a gremlin. It’s just his face.”

“Well I must be a hot gremlin,” Nolan retorted. “The blonde at the table in the back right corner is making eyes at me.”

Carter scanned the screens before him.  There were fifteen total screens, some showing video surveillance within the ballroom that Nolan and Travis were in, others showing hallways and exits. He focused on screen 12, which showed a corner of the ballroom.

There was, in fact, a blond girl that kept looking over at Nolan, her held tilted as she looked up through her eyelashes. Her lips were blood red as they curled into a sultry smile.

“I bet she wears glasses,” Travis hummed thoughtfully. “Probably forgot her contacts.”

“Servers should be seen and not heard,” Nolan replied snidely.

Carter knew they couldn’t see him roll his eyes, but it still felt right to do it anyway. “Can we focus?” he asked lightly. “G is waiting for one of you to slip him the earpiece.”

He watched as Travis moved throughout the crowded ballroom, a towel over his left shoulder and a tray in his right hand. “On it,” he said smoothly, handing out glasses of champagne to a table that definitely did not contain Claude Giroux.

“Moving slow there, 011,” Nolan mumbled, pretending to take a sip of the champagne in his hand.

Travis didn’t reply to Nolan, choosing instead to exchange pleasantries with the attendees of the banquet before moving on to another table. He handed champagne to a redheaded man at the table, fingers brushing the man’s suit sleeve and slipping an earpiece to the captain of their special ops team.

After passing champagne out to the other three members of the table, Travis made a beeline toward the kitchens. “You’re a dick and I hate you,” he said. “Not you, 079. You’re great.”

“I’m well aware,” Carter replied wryly. “There’s a change of clothes waiting for you in the restroom. It’s in a black plastic bag taped underneath the sink.”

“Got it.”

Carter watched on screen 9 as Travis slipped out of the kitchen and headed off toward the bathroom. He then looked to screen 4, where Claude was excusing himself from the table.

Claude slipped the device into his ear, pretending to fix his hair to disguise the motion.

"I can't even begin to tell you how boring this entire operation has been," he started. "If I have to listen to Daniels say one more word after this whole thing is over, I will lose my mind."

"Tell us how you really feel, Cap," Carter said wryly.

"He smells like cheese. And not the good kind." Nolan snorted and had to cover it up with a cough. Claude continued. “What do you have, 079?”

“His buyers should be arriving in the next ten minutes if everything goes according to plan,” Carter reported.

“Great. I’ll keep them distracted.” Claude exited the ballroom. “You got eyes on Daniels?”

Andrew Daniels was a mousy looking man on the surface, kind of short and a little overweight. His thinning brown hair was gelled like a helmet, and his smile looked more like a grimace. He didn’t look like the kind of guy responsible for the largest drug trafficking ring in Pennsylvania, but Carter had learned very quickly in this line of work that looks were not everything.

“He’s at the same table as 019’s blond friend,” Carter reported dryly.

“Well, 019,” Claude hummed, amused. “Maybe you’ll get to meet her after all. Go over there and keep an eye on our guy.”

Nolan grunted in confirmation. He was a man of few words when they weren’t scathing or sarcastic.

Carter watched Nolan on his screen, and then shifted his gaze to the camera that was right outside the bathroom that Travis had just disappeared into. “Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll cut the camera feed to get you out of there, 011.”

“’Kay,” Travis said, and there was a slight rustling noise. “I’m good to go.”

Carter pulled his keyboard closer. “You’ll have twenty seconds of looping footage to get to the third floor.”

“Oh, geeze,” Travis groaned. “I have to run up some stairs, don’t I?”

Carter was grateful that Nolan was busy flirting with the hot blond at Daniels’ table, or else he surely would have had something less than charming to say. “Exercise is good for you,” he said, channeling a much nicer version of Nolan to tease his teammate.

Travis snickered. “Say when.”

“Countdown from three, then go,” Carter said, shutting off the cameras and replaying the hallway and northern stairwell on a loop.

Travis took a deep breath, waited, and then bolted. Carter couldn’t see him, of course, but he could hear the sound of Travis stomping up the stairs and his breathing.

“Ten seconds,” Carter warned after a moment.

“Made it already,” Travis huffed. He only sounded a little out of breath. “Where to?”

Carter caught sight of Travis on a new screen, dressed completely in black this time. “014 is waiting for you in room 327.”

In their ears, Sean hummed, deciding his mention was worth joining the conversation. “About time, too,” he said. “You’re slacking, 011.”

Carter rolled his eyes and tuned them out, instead focusing back on Nolan. He had muted Nolan when he sat down to flirt with the blond girl, but now he was turning the volume on Nolan’s line to get a better idea of what was going on at the table.

The girl was saying something about hockey, and though it was soft because she was not the one wearing the earpiece and wire, Carter could still make out a few words. She was talking about her college team, he was pretty sure, or something to do with women’s hockey. Nolan was smiling on the screen and nodding along, offering a comment here or there but mostly letting the girl lead the conversation. He wasn’t much a talker, so it was good that she seemed to be.

Daniels sat across the table from them, squinting at Nolan suspiciously. He said something, and Nolan and the girl immediately stopped talking and looked over at him.

Carter hadn’t caught it, so he turned up the volume just a little more.

“Penn State,” Nolan said. “I’m studying communications.”

Daniels wrinkled his nose. “And what do you plan on doing with it, my boy?”

Nolan laughed. “Well, I don’t actually know yet. I’m trying to figure it out as a I go.”

“I see,” Daniels said. Then, “And who are you here with tonight?”

Nolan looked around. “My uncle is floating around here somewhere.”

“Your uncle?”

“Norman Etienne,” Nolan said, using Claude’s fake identity for the night. “He’s a lab technician with your company.”

“Ah, I see.”

“That’s pretty cool,” the blond girl said, leaning forward and propping her hand in her chin. “But you have no interest in science at all?”

“I was never all that great at science,” Nolan replied, and then they were off talking again.

Claude cursed under his breath, and Carter turned Nolan's transmission down to focus instead on Claude. “How’s it going, 028?” he asked hesitantly.

" _Crosby_ is here."

"What?" Travis squawked. "What the hell is _he_ doing here?"

"Good question," Carter muttered. "Where do you see him?"

“He just left his car with the valet,” Claude reported. Carter could see on screen 1 that he was seated in the lobby, a hat placed atop his ginger head and his head tilted low. “He’s on his way in now.”

“What about you, 014 and 011?”

“We got into Daniels’ room,” Sean reported. “We haven’t found anything, though. Are we sure this is his room?”

“Well, I’m definitely sure,” Travis said, sighing dramatically. “This man has a lot of monogramed shirts.”

“Huh, that’s funny. So does 028,” Sean chirped.

“I do not,” Claude bit back.

“Focus, please,” Carter said amicably. “Is Crosby in the lobby yet?”

“Yeah, he’s heading toward the elevator. He’s alone.” Claude frowned visibly as he stood, starting off after Crosby. “What is he _doing_ here?”

“I really don't know. He never popped up in our preparations,” Carter said. “I’ll keep an eye on him, though."

Claude grunted in confirmation. "I have a bad feeling about this. 019, get ready to get Daniels out of there.”

Nolan didn’t react verbally, but he did drum his fingers on the table, which was an affirmative. "He acknowledged," Carter told Claude.

The lights going out throughout the entire hotel at that exact moment was random and completely unplanned for (it appeared to be, anyway, but Carter knew better), and Claude cursed under his breath. “Was that you, 079?”

“No,” Carter hissed. He didn’t like looking at the black screens all around, leaving him in the dark both literally and figuratively. “Their Q must have access to the same systems. I can't do anything about the lights."

"Shit."

Carter felt panic rise in his chest. "I can't see anyone. I need everyone to sound off.”

“011 and I are good,” Sean reported.

“I’m also good,” Claude said. “I’m going back to the ballroom. Sound off, 019.”

Nolan remained silent. Carter thought that maybe he had turned his transmission volume down, but he cranked the notch as high as it would go and no sound came from it.

The hotel lights came back on, and Claude stumbled into the ballroom just as the party goers were looking around with apparent confusion and concern.

Carter spotted the table at the same time Claude did. Daniels was still seated, looking vaguely irritated, but Nolan was nowhere to be seen, and neither was the blond girl.

“Shit,” Claude and Carter said in unison.

“What?” Travis demanded.

“Nothing,” Carter replied quickly. The last thing he needed to tell Travis was that his best friend was unaccounted for and potentially in a dangerous situation. “You and 014 need to get out of there. Head for the rendezvous point?”

Travis hesitated. “But we haven’t found the—”

“That’s an order, 011,” Claude said firmly. “014, stay with him.”

“You got it, Captain,” Sean said.

Carter stared at the sound board before him, where Nolan’s transmission light was blinking with a request to be connected. He clicked the button to disconnect Sean and Travis and then answered the call from Nolan. “019?”

Claude was frozen at the door to the ballroom, listening just as intently as Carter.

“Not quite,” came a sweet voice. It was the blond girl from the table where Nolan had been last. “Is the Flyers’ Captain on this line? He and I need to have a word.”

“He is,” Claude replied in a voice that was misleadingly calm. “What can I help you with?”

“Well,” the girl started. “I’m sure you’ve noticed the Captain of the Penguins on site, correct?”

“We have,” Claude confirmed flatly. He did not sound pleased.

“Great. The lights will go out again in one minute. When that happens, you need to let him take Daniels.”

Claude snorted. “Right.”

“I’m not joking,” the girl replied gravely. “019’s life depends on it.”

“How do we know you haven’t already taken him out?”

Carter hated to hear a question like that asked about someone he knew, someone he considered a friend. He waited, holding his breath.

“I suppose you wouldn’t know,” the girl agreed thoughtfully. “But I’m a decent person, y’know? Does your Quartermaster have access to all the cameras?”

Carter hesitated. “Yes.”

“Look at the basement camera.”

Carter switched the feed on screen 5, which was footage of an empty hallway, to the basement camera. The blond girl stood in front of the camera, flashing a bright smile and waving cheerily. She moved to the side and leaned against the wall, revealing Nolan with a gun to his head. The owner of the gun was no other than Evgeni Malkin, yet another member of the Penguins Special Ops.

Nolan was glaring at the ground, his jaw clenched and his hands balled into fists at his side. He didn’t appear to be injured.

“Do you have a visual of 019, 079?” Claude demanded.

“Yes,” Carter reported. “He’s unarmed. Malkin is with him.”

Claude cursed in French. “That’s it, then? You just expect us to give you Daniels? We know how your team operates; there’s no guarantee that you won’t just kill 019 the minute you have what you came here for.”

“Yeah, that’s correct,” the blond girl sighed, resigned. “But there’s no need for bloodshed. We will release your agent the moment Agent Crosby leaves the hotel with Daniels. Oh, and don’t attempt to pull some misguided rescue. My friend here is a little trigger happy when it comes to his least favorite ops team.”

Claude’s scowl could be seen from space, Carter was pretty sure. “Fine.”

The blond girl beamed. “Cool. Hey, Quartermaster 079, disconnect your captain.”

Carter blanched. “What?”

“Disconnect him. We need to have a little chat.”

“Don’t,” Claude ordered.

On screen 5, Carter watched as the blond girl waved her hand in the direction of Malkin. He grabbed at Nolan’s hair and pulled his head back, shoving the gun into the soft skin on the underside of his jaw. Nolan visibly flinched.

“028,” Carter croaked. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you fucking—”

Carter cut the connection. “What do you want?”

“Listen,” the girl said. “You need to get yourself out of that organization. The Flyers are going to get you killed.”

Carter snorted. “What would you know about the Flyers?”

“A lot more than you think,” the girl replied. “You’re their temporary guy, aren’t you?”

Carter had no clue how she knew that, but it made him uncomfortable to even think about being temporary. He had been with the Flyers for well over a month, and they had yet to send him back to the training team. Their last Quartermaster was still recovering from something that no one would tell him about, and he thought that it wasn’t his business to ask, anyway.

He thought about his space in Claude’s guestroom, and yeah, maybe it was temporary, but he was starting to think that he might be sticking around a lot longer than anyone originally thought.

“Yeah, I guess,” Carter said after a moment. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“They’ve gone through more than six Q’s in the last couple of months. They’ve either ended up dead, kidnapped, or worse.”

“What’s worse that those two things?”

“I doubt you want to know,” the girl said gravely. “Anyway. They have a bad habit of unfortunate things happening to their Q’s, and unless you want to be next, I suggest you get out of there.”

“Sounds like you’re just trying to scare me off.”

“I’m really, really not,” the girl said, and she sounded very serious. “Trust me. As someone who was once a Q myself, I know what I’m talking about. The Flyers are dangerous.”

“So are the Penguins,” Carter retorted. “I don’t see you quitting their ops team, though.”

“Oh, I’m not part of their ops team,” she hummed, smiling. “I’m just doing a favor for a family member, is all.”

Onscreen, Malkin hit Nolan in the temple with his gun, let him drop unconscious to the concrete floor. His mouth moved onscreen, his voice coming in faintly through the girl when Carter turned the volume of her transmission up higher. “Sid have Daniels. Time to go, Taylor.”

The girl, Taylor, nodded at him, and then looked back at the security camera. “Remember what I said. Good luck, 079.” She pulled Nolan’s earpiece from her own ear and dropped it to the floor, grinding it under her shoe as she and Malkin stalked off.

Carter immediately reconnected the line with Claude. “Get to the basement,” he said quickly.

Claude was already moving. “Don’t _ever_ do that again,” he hissed as he bolted for the stairwell.

“Malkin was going to hurt 019!” Carter protested. “What did you want me to _do_? Let him get shot?”

Claude breathed out heavily through his nose. “Have medical on standby,” he said instead of answering the question, his tone laced with thinly veiled anger. "And send in 017."

Carter flinched. “Okay.”

He immediately sent out a distress signal to one of their extraction guys, Wayne Simmonds. “028 needs you in the basement of the location right now,” Carter told him.

Wayne grunted. “On it.”

Claude had reached the basement and knelt down next to Nolan, pushing his hair back to get a look at where he’d been hit. “The skin wasn’t broken,” he reported. “He’s breathing fine.”

Carter relayed the information to Wayne, who arrived at the basement moments later. “Van’s parked right outside the door,” he said. “014 and 011 are ready to go.”

Together, Claude and Wayne carefully put one of Nolan’s arms around each of their shoulders and headed for the door. Carter switched the camera feed to look at the outside view of the door as they loaded Nolan into the back, and then watched the van drive off.

“Report to 048,” Claude ordered. “Our ETA is fifteen minutes.”

He disconnected the line, and Carter slumped in his seat, his shoulders drawn up to his ears. He’d fucked up while acting as Quartermaster without supervision for the first time. There was no way the Flyers would keep him now, with one of their agents being captured on what was supposed to be an easy mission, as well as disobeying the Captain.

Carter breathed in and out shakily, trying to build his confidence. Squaring his shoulders, he forced down the anxious twisting and turning of his stomach and headed to 048’s office.

 

* * *

 

 

Danny Briere looked up with a bright smile when Carter entered the room, but his smile quickly fell away to reveal a concerned frown. “What happened?” he demanded immediately.

Carter hovered in the doorway to his office. “The Penguins were there. They got to Daniels before we could, and Nolan was injured.”

Danny leaned forward. “Is everyone else okay?”

“Yeah,” Carter said. “But, I—” His words died in his throat. He found that, if he continued to speak, he would probably cry.

God, he had fucked up _so bad_.

Danny stood from his chair. “Let’s head down to medical together, eh?”

They were silent on the elevator ride down, and Danny guided Carter to one of the beds and had him sit down. He left the room for a moment but then returned almost immediately, a bottle of water in hand. He handed it to Carter, who accepted it with shaking hands.

“Carter,” Danny said gently. “You need to calm down.”

“I don’t think I can,” Carter admitted quietly. “I—am I going to be sent back to the Phantoms?”

Danny grimaced. He wasn’t the type of guy to sugarcoat things, Carter knew. He had three kids of his own, and lying just to make others feel better wasn’t something he was known for.

“Maybe,” he said delicately, “but if you are, it won’t be for a while. Until we can find someone qualified. You still have some training to go through, and being put into your position so young is—it’s damaging, Carter. You deserve to be a kid still and have a safe place to make mistakes and grow from them.”

“I’m not a kid,” Carter pointed out. “And the mistakes I make here aren’t the kind you come back from.”

Danny sighed and sat next to Carter. “Even if you aren’t a kid, you’re still young. It wasn’t fair for us to put you in a position like this, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. You’ve shown that you’re resilient and capable of keeping track of the team, and we wouldn’t be having the kind of success we are without you.”

“We didn’t succeed tonight, though.” Carter felt his eyes burn, but he refused to cry.

“Did anyone die?”

“No.”

“Did everyone get out of the hotel?”

“Yes.”

Danny grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. “It’s the small successes that matter just as much as the big ones, Carter.”

The door to the medical ward opened and Claude and Wayne came through it, Nolan supported between them. He was awake now, his eyes kind of glassy but otherwise unscathed, and Travis and Sean came trailing in behind, a medic hot on their heels.

“I can walk, you know,” Nolan mumbled, but he didn’t make any attempt to shake off his worried teammates as they helped him across the room and to one of the beds.

Carter stood up, his heart pounding. “Nolan, I’m so—”

“Oh my _god_ , shut up, Hartsy,” he snapped. “If you say sorry to me, I’m going to punch you in the face.”

Carter flinched. “Okay.”

Nolan grimaced, but Carter couldn’t tell if it was from the medic prodding at the knot on his head or Carter. “Ugh, I didn’t mean it like that,” he groaned.

Carter was very, very aware of all eyes on them as Claude, Sean, Travis, Wayne, and Danny stood silently around them. “What did you mean, then?”

Despite the glassy look still in his eyes, he stared hard at Carter. “You saved me, you dumbass. Don’t apologize for that.”

“But—”

“Listen, Hartsy, rolling my eyes hurts, but just know I would be doing that right now if it didn’t.”

Carter smiled, small and hesitant. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, yeah. Go get some sleep to keep that big brain of yours working.” Nolan then looked to the rest of the team. “I’ll be fine here.”

Travis ignored him and took a seat on one of the beds. “Right. I got it from here, guys.”

Everyone except for the medic and Travis filed out of the room, and once they were all in the hallway, Claude rounded on Carter. Danny, Sean, and Wayne were quick to take off down the hallway and give them their privacy in the hallway.

“Carter,” Claude said carefully.

“I’m sorry,” Carter interrupted. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you and I completely understand that you’re upset—”

Claude held up a hand, and Carter shut up immediately. “You did good, kid.”

Carter blinked once, twice, and then a third time before blurting, “ _Huh?_ ”

Claude sighed. “I know I didn’t act like it at the time, but you made the best call. The Flyers aren’t like a lot of special ops teams. Our priority is always making sure our guys get in and out of there as safely as possible. If it comes down to one of our guys or the mission’s success, I want you to make that decision every time.”

“Really?” Carter asked, his voice small. “I thought you were angry that I didn’t listen to you.”

“I _was_ angry,” Claude agreed, “But not at you. You did everything you should have. I was mad that the Penguins were interfering.”

Carter nodded absently. “Do we know why they were there?”

“No clue,” Claude admitted gravely. “I’m off to a meeting with Director Fletcher to figure that out.”

“Okay,” Carter said. “Should I crash in the barracks until you’re done?”

Claude shook his head. “You can just head home, if you want. I’m sure TK wouldn’t mind dropping you off.”

Carter frowned. “But I don’t have a key."

A look of surprise passed across Claude’s face for just a moment. “Shit, did I—” He frowned. “Come with me.” He turned sharply on his heel and marched off down the hall, and Carter scrambled to follow after him.

They reached the locker room, where each of them had their own assigned locker and could shower if they chose to before or after missions. Claude went right to his locker and reached for something on the top shelf.

He turned to Carter, a key in his hand.

“I keep meaning to give this to you,” he said apologetically, holding it out.

Carter took the key, which was small and painted orange. It couldn’t have weighed all that much, but it felt heavier in his hands with its meaning and promises.

“This is—?”

“A key to my apartment,” Claude said gently. “You said you didn’t have a key. Well, now you do.”

Carter's brain chose that moment to short circuit. The key in his hand was more than just a key to Claude’s apartment—it was a clear invitation to stay, but it was also an indication that Carter could come and go as he pleased. It felt like an offering, and maybe it wasn’t all that big of a deal to Claude, but to Carter, it meant everything.

“Thanks,” he croaked, unable to put into words what he really wanted to say. _Thank you for the key, thank you for believing in me, thank you for trusting me,_ were all things that he felt went unsaid but not unheard.

Claude smiled, either not noticing or pretending not to notice that Carter was about ready to cry. “No problem, Hartsy. I have to get to that meeting, though, so you should head out.” He slammed his locker shut and started off toward the door. “I’ll see you at home.”

 _Home_. Carter’s heart fluttered. “See ya, G.”

If home was living with his disaster of a Captain who made him grilled cheese at 2AM, and waking up in the morning to his groupchat with Nolan and Travis full of their married bickering, and Danny’s calm reassurances, then... well.

Carter decided that there was nowhere he’d rather be.

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for: minor violence, appearance of a firearm (it isn't fired), some cursing if that isn't your cup of tea
> 
> i hope you all enjoyed! if you'd like to see more please let me know :)


End file.
